Pilot error on flight path took QZ8501 through storm zone?

Why did the plane fly through Java’s ‘thunderstorm factory’?

Expert Neil Hansford said that either the Indonesian captain or the French first officer plotted a dangerous flight plan.

He said veteran pilots avoided the area where the plane is believed to have gone down and would not fly through it. “They call it ‘the thunderstorm factory,'” Hansford told the Nine Network, Xinhua reported.

“You plan to go around it. You don’t plan to go through it.”

He said whoever plotted the flight plan made a fatal error.

Meanwhile, search for the missing plane resumed Tuesday. The multi-national search operation has now been expanded to a wider area, media reports said.